On 6 February 2012, No Peace Without Justice and the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty hosted Tawakool Karman, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, on the occasion of her first visit to Italy. Ms Karman is a key actor of the Yemeni Arab Spring and leader of the nonviolent struggle for the affirmation of women’s rights in her country, for which she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
During her two-day visit, Tawakkol Karman had a series of high-level meetings with President Giorgio Napolitano, Prime Minister Mario Monti and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Giulio Terzi, and gave public hearings in the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliament and the Senate, as well as participating in a press conference with NPWJ and the NRPTT that was the first engagement of her visit to Rome.
On behalf of the youth of the Yemeni revolution, Tawakkol Karman took the opportunity to stress that “there can be no peace without justice in Yemen”, asking the Italian Government to do its utmost to freeze the overseas assets of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and ensure his referral to the International Criminal Court for “his crimes against humanity”. She stressed that such measures are the key to successful peaceful transition in Yemen after the planned early presidential elections.
Regarding the situation in Syria, Ms Karman condemned China and Russia for their decision to veto a United Nations Security Council Resolution to end the violence in Syria, adding that they bear the moral and human responsibility for the escalating crackdown by the government of President Bashar al-Assad. She urged members of the international community to take the necessary measures to protect the Syrian people and condemn the Syrian regime, including by expelling Syrian ambassadors from their countries and recalling their ambassadors from Syria.
For further information, please contact: Gianluca Eramo, email: geramo@npwj.org, phone: + +1 212 9802558 or Nicola Giovannini on ngiovannini@npwj.org or +32 2 548 39 15.
